Some Fatherly Advice
by nannygirl
Summary: After Brooke tells Kelso that it would be easier if she raised their child on her own in "I'm Free," Kelso becomes depressed but Kitty believes she knows what can help: a talk with Red.


_**Disclaimer: **__I own nothing. I do not own That '70s Show or any of it's characters. I do not own any other characters, items, movies, or TV shows that may be mentioned in this story. I own nothing!_

_**Author's Note: **__Hello everyone! How are you all? Hope you're doing well. It's been too long I know. And I am so, so, so sorry but school just had me swamped with stuff the class really kicked my butt but today was my last class so now I've got my summer break! Yay! Get ready for some long overdue updates! I wanted to start with this story though because I actually started writing it when I first started the class, so I thought it'd be fitting to post it on the day I finished my class. This story was supposed to be posted back on Father's Day so I's a really, really late Father's Day story. I hope all the dads had a wonderful day! Special thanks to Marla and Nim who helped me in picking who to have co-starring in this story. And a huge thanks to all of you wonderful readers who have been so patient and understanding while I've been away from the site, I really do feel bad but I'm gonna be working hard to get caught up with stories (be on the lookout for reviews people!) and writing (be on the lookout for updates!). You all are so awesome! Thanks for stopping by to read, I really hope that you enjoy it! Please do review if you can, I'd really love to hear your thoughts! Hope you like and as always, Enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Some Fatherly Advice<strong>

Looking out the glass sliding doors as she stood behind her kitchen sink, Kitty Forman saw the young man sitting on her patio looking as sad as a lost puppy dog in the rain; which was almost ironic since that same young man had once brought into her home a puppy he'd found looking lost in the rain. That had been many years ago but Kitty could still recall the fluffy pooch and the mud it trailed on her clean kitchen floor, and the sound of little laughs and squeals as the kids chased the dog around, and the grand smile that the dog's finder wore that whole evening. It was the same smile that he could usually be found wearing but today it was nowhere in sight and it broke Kitty's heart.

"Oh Red, would you look at poor Michael out there." She said to her husband, her eyes still on the young man outside.

Red however, kept his eyes on his paper as he spoke in an unimpressed tone, "Yup, he's a dumbass."

"No, Red," she scolded; now frowning at her newspaper reading husband, "He looks so sad and beaten down."

"Kitty, I haven't been anywhere near the boy." Red said raising up his newspaper a little higher, not wanting to give her the chance to blame him.

But it appeared that Kitty wasn't looking to place any blame on Red, she seemed to have a different agenda all together.

"Red, I think you should go out there and talk to him."

The suggestion was finally enough to get Red to lower his paper into a crumbled mess on the table; he wore a scowl that was deep with disgust, "Why?"

Kitty knew it wouldn't be easy to convince Red to go out to talk to the sad young boy outside. Kelso wasn't his flesh and blood like Eric was; he also didn't exactly have the close father son like bond that Steven had with Red. Even convincing Red to talk to Fez would be easier now that Fez was their new son-in-law. Still Kitty wasn't giving up that easily.

"Because he just found that he'd going to be a father." She explained, hoping the experienced father and new father combination would be enough; the look on Red's face said otherwise though, so she continued on, "And you heard Donna tell Eric how he's having a tough time with the mother of is child. I think he could use some fatherly advice."

"Then let him get it from his own father." Red barked before lifting the newspaper back up.

Shaking her head and clucking her tongue, Kitty walked over to the table and sat down in the chair beside Red's, "Oh Red, you know the Kelso Family is. They have so many kids they probably have to set office hours so that they can talk to them all."

"We might have to start looking into that." He remarked, sounding quite serious.

"Red."

He heaved out a sigh and lowered his paper some, "What do you want me to do, Kitty?"

"I want you to go out there and talk to the poor boy."

"Why, Kitty? Why should I even attempt to have a conversation with the kettlehead?" Red wanted to know.

"Because it could really help him. And it could help you and your grumpy heart by doing something good." She pointed out, though still not yet done, "Besides helping people is good. You know who else helped people?"she asked but didn't give Red a chance to answer, "Jesus."

"Kitty." Red groaned with annoyance and closed eyes, "I already helped someone out." He reminded opening his eyes to frown back at her, "I helped the foreigner stay in the country, didn't I? That's gotta be enough of helping someone to last me two weeks."

Kitty nodded after giving his words some thought, "That's true. You did help Fez. And it really meant a lot to everyone, especially Fez."

"There you see." Red said, getting ready to return to his reading before his wife spoke again.

"And you know, Fez was so grateful for what you did today that he even moved his air mattress into our bedroom."

"What the hell for?" Red angrily asked, but waited for no reply as he moved onto his next question. "You told him to get it out of there, right?"

She pursed her lips together, "Well, I was going to but that would be helping you."

As soon as Red heard his wife's words, his frown flattened out; she didn't need to finish her thought—he knew exactly what she was up to—but she continued on anyways.

"And I already helped someone out too…"

Without saying another word, Red stood up from his seat and slid open the glass kitchen door. He glared over at the sulking young man sitting in the patio chair but felt anything but pity for the man.

"Kelso, get out into the garage."

The boy's head popped up to show that all of his sadness had suddenly turned into fear and his palms opened up in front of him.

"Red, it wasn't me who touched Laurie, I swear!" he pleaded in attempt to stop any of this from beginning, "If anything it was Fez since he's married to her now, remember? So they've gotta do it, it's the law!"

Looking angrier than before, Red spoke again, "Garage _now_."

This time Kelso wasted no time and dashed off to the open garage, nearly tripping over his own feet—twice. Red shook his head at the scene, this was going to be a long talk, he thought before looking at his wife.

"Get the foreigner out of our room."

Kitty only smiled and nodded as she watched her husband exit the kitchen and make his way to the garage.

0o0o0o

Stepping into the garage, Red found Kelso sitting on an old stool, looking just as he had when he was out on the patio. Shoulders slumped and head hung down. However, hearing the heavy footsteps of Red and the rolling wheels of the garage door as it was pulled shut with a loud slam, Kelso's head lifted up to and showed how he'd had another change of emotions.

He no longer looked so frightened and instead appeared like he'd accepted his fate but was still sad about it.

"Red, I know you're gonna kill me and all and after everything that's happened lately, I guess that'd be okay." Kelso stated with a shrug, "But could you at least not touch the face?" he requested, waving a hand in front of his man-pretty face, "I wanna have an open casket so I can grace the world with this masterpiece one last time."

Red's scowl deepened at hearing this morbid—and dumb—request, "Kelso, I don't plan on killing you."

"You don't?" the younger man asked sounding surprised but not as happy as he should have,

"No." Red said firmly, "I brought you in here to talk to you about you getting the Rockwell girl in trouble."

Kelso's brows wrinkled together in confusion before he started to shake his head, "Oh I didn't get Brooke in trouble, I knocked her up."

Red's eyes narrowed into a deeper, more annoyed, frown, "That's what 'in trouble' means, Kelso."

"Oh." He repeated, still confused but he didn't see any point in trying to figure it out, just like he didn't see much of a point in having this talk with Red. He shrugged his shoulders at both things, "Well, thanks anyways Red, but it's too late now. Brooke already told me she doesn't want me to be part of my kid's life." He explained sadly, "She said if I stuck around she'd have two babies to take care of instead of just one."

The statement caused Red's brows to rise with interest, "She's a smart girl."

Kelso's head lifted back up to look at Red, his expression showing hurt and anger as he yelled out, "That's not making me feel better, Red!"

"I'm not trying to make you feel better, Kelso!" Red shouted back; he did not like being yelled at, especially when the person yelling at him was one of his son's dumbass friends. "I'm trying to make you realize where you messed thing up and figure out how you can fix them so you can be part of your kid's life."

Hearing this, Kelso did a sort of Scooby Doo shake of his head before asking, "You are? Why?"

He'd asked his second question before Red had the chance to answer the first one. Mostly because Kelso didn't exactly want to give Red that chance. He was already convinced that this could be some sort of trick. The smirk that had crept up on Red's lips wasn't helping to settle his worries at all.

"You helped fix my Pong game a few years back," Red reminded with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "What do you say after this we call it even?"

In what must have been shorter than an instant, Kelso's worried frown turned into one of his large dopey grins as he nodded his head in agreement.

"Yeah, okay!"

Red moved his head up and down, glad that they had come to a quick agreement. After all, the sooner this thing is got started the sooner it was all over with.

"Alright," the older man said, taking a step forward, "Now your first mistake was…" he cleared suddenly stopped in the middle of his sentence to figure out the right way to phrase this. He cleared his throat, "Uhm you…" no that wasn't it either; he gave an uncomfortable cough before giving it another shot, "It's…I…"

This wasn't going to work.

Red could barely talk about this subject out loud at all let alone with the kettlehead! There was another uncomfortable cough before giving it another quick cough followed by a throat clearing before Red spoke again, sounding just as serious and stern as before. "And your second mistake was the way you reacted to the news."

Right away Kelso's head lowered in shame as he thought back to a few days ago when Brooke told him she was pregnant. He should have reacted to the way he did when she admitted that they had done 'it'—not the way he actually did.

"But I'll give you the fact that most men don't react in the best way when they first find out they're going to be a father." Red informed, sparking Kelso's curiosity.

"How'd you react?"

"It doesn't matter," replied the scowling Red.

Kelso's grin appeared again, perhaps even bigger than before, "That bad huh?"

This time it was Red's frown that grew, "When Kitty told me she was pregnant with Laurie, I didn't go around telling people that I never touched her." Red said, smiling jut slightly but it was enough to fill Kelso with guilt all over again and make his grin deflate into a pout, "All I did was say 'Oh no' and then… 'crap.'"

"Burn!" Kelso abruptly exclaimed, head now up and grin back in place.

After getting over the shock of the unexpected outburst, Red looked at Kelso, a bit confused and not knowing how exactly to respond, muttered back, "Yeah, right."

Red knew that his reaction to Kitty's first pregnancy had not been his finest moment in his marriage to Kitty but it also wasn't the worst either. His reaction to her second pregnancy wasn't any better either though.

"Man, I can't wait to tell Laurie." Kelso said with his smile still intact and never even fading as Red's scowl increased.

"Kelso," he growled in what was supposed to be a warning kind of tone but instead came out just as an angry one. "You're not telling Laurie anything. In fact, you're not telling anybody anything that I say in here." He continued, his tone switching from angry to threatening and the way he was glowering above Kelso, had the younger man swiping the smile off his face. "And if you do, I'll make it so you can't tell anybody anything ever again. Got it?"

"But…you said you didn't have plans to kill me." Kelso was quick to remind.

"I can always change my plans." The older man shot back, "You wouldn't want me to change my plans would you?"

A head shake and a gulp were seen before Red smirked and nodded his head, getting ready to move on.

"Now," he cleared his throat quickly. "A year or so ago when Kitty thought she was pregnant, I didn't react in the best way. I acted like…"

"A dumbass." A voice finished for him.

Immediately, Red glared daggers at the seated young man. Seeing the angry look being sent his way, Kelso's eyes widened and he began to look around the room as if looking for the person who'd made the comment.

Red's frown deepened as he continued, "The point is, even though I didn't react in the best way, I still managed to get back on Kitty's good side and most importantly I showed her that I was ready to accept this baby with open arms. I did this by touching up the paint on Eric's old cradle up there."

Kelso followed the older man's finger to find the old blue cradle gathering dust on top of a garage shelf.

"Oh cool." He admired, "Can I borrow it to paint and show Brooke? I'm thinking it should be black with fir and fireballs and a dragon. Oh! And a monkey!"

Red scowled with disgust at the mere thought that Kelso's words had put in his head.

"Kelso, there is no way in hell I'm letting you anywhere near that cradle." He barked out, "You've got to go out and buy your own baby crap."

"But I already did. I bought a baby sweater, a baby baseball cap, and baby Pop Rocks." Kelso informed, his tone becoming more and more sad, he never noticed the strange look Red sent him after hearing the words 'baby Pop Rocks,' he just continued his story, "But when I showed them to Brooke…that's when she told me she didn't want me being part of my kid's life."

While Kelso's head lowered once more and his hands moved up a bit on his arms as if to lightly hug himself, Red's frown deepened with thought.

"Well, it looks like you're gonna have to do something a lot bigger to get out of this hole."

"Like what?" Kelso asked, sounding desperate.

Suddenly the wrinkled frown on Red's forehead straightened into a more serious look, "You're gonna have to grow up."

"But…but I don't wanna!" Kelso declared, both sounding and looking like childish with his pouting face and stomp of his left foot.

His actions made Red's scowl reappear within seconds and he no longer looked or felt sympathy for the young man.

"Well too bad, because if you want to be part of your kid's life, you're gonna have to." He explained while still scowling down at Kelso, "And you better get used to doing things you don't want to do. It's not all about you anymore. You're gonna have to give up a lot too. You give up the alone time you had with your wife. You give up your Saturdays to go to ballet recitals and T-ball game where your kid spends more than half of the game sitting in the dugout. You give up on getting your dream job because it doesn't matter if you like your job or not, all that matters is your getting money to feed and take care of your kid and all of his riff raff friends. And any leftover cash can't even go to saving up for the car you've wanted since you were eighteen years old because it has to go towards the damn college education that the kid turns out to not even want."

As Red spoke these words, his voice became more and more angry causing Kelso to become more and more frightened.

"Um Red," Kelso called, hoping to grab the older man's attention but not his anger.

"What?" Red grumbled back, though quickly realized he may have strayed off a little too much in his speech; he cleared his throat, "Point is, you give up a lot when you're a dad. But you also get back a lot. Being a dad is probably the toughest job you'll ever have, but it's also pretty rewarding." His features softened just a tad, "You don't want to miss out on it, Kelso."

"Yeah, I know," agreed Kelso, looking down for a moment. "I don't want my kid growing up without a dad or he could grow up to be like Hyde."

Though the words caused Red's frown to make another reappearance, he said nothing; in fact it was Kelso who spoke again when he remembered a small detail that sparked a big idea.

"Oh! There's a new waiter position open at the hotel," he started to inform." You think if I got it, it would show Brooke how much of a grownup I am?"

Red's brows rose as he considered the idea and then he shrugged, "Could be a nice starting point."

"Awesome!" cheered an excited Kelso, though slowly his smile faded as his mind drifted to new and more serious thought, "Hey Red, do you think I'll be a good dad?"

"No," came Red's nearly instant reply.

Kelso's frown deepened but only for a moment; his smile quickly grew again as he asked, "Cuz I'm gonna be an awesome dad, right?"

"No," Red repeated, however this time he decided to share his explanation, "You're gonna be the kind of dad that your kid needs and that's what's important."

Kelso could understand that and he moved his head up and down to show his understanding, "You know Red, even though you're a grumpy old bald guy, you're a pretty nice guy too."

Red scowled back as he replied, "No, I'm not."

"Yeah, you are." Kelso argued with his grin back on his face, "Everything you told me right now, it really touched my heart." He said finishing his statement by placing his hand over his heart.

"Yeah, well…" Red's expression looked almost embarrassed for less than a split second before it turned into the more common serious and a bit threatening expression that he usually wore. "My foot is gonna be touching your heart when I shove it up your ass."

With his grin shrinking in size, Kelso scanned his eyes from his butt to his chest and then back up at Red, "That's kinda long way, isn't it?"

"Wanna find out?" Red asked with a challenging smirk.

Swiftly, Kelso shook his head back and forth as he popped out of his seat, "Nuh-uh." And then he rushed out the back door of the garage.

Shaking his own head at the sight he'd just witnessed, Red opened the garage door back up, his mind still thinking about how that kettlehead was going to be a father. That kid who had once shown up to the front of his house not wearing pants—because he'd forgot to put them on—was going to have a kid. Wasn't that a kick in the head?

But it was life, Red supposed as he walked onto the pavement of the driveway, in life you grow up have kids and then your kids grow up and have their own kids and the cycle continued on. Sometimes it was hard for Red to believe that the dumbasses that occupied his basement were getting closer to the having their own kids part of the cycle.

For a moment Red wondered what it would be like when his kids started having kids. They'd probably befriend the kettlehead's kid and act like dumbasses together, finally giving their parents a taste of their own medicine while Red could just sit back and enjoy the show.

Unless, the dumbasses remained dumbasses and continued to pollute the basement years from now and brought their mini-dumbasses along. That would mean there'd be two generations of dumbasses. That thought stopped Red in his tracks, right in the middle of the driveway; however, before his imagination could get the best of him, he heard the familiar sound of the sliding door being pulled open.

He looked over to find Kitty making her way across the patio and he felt the corner of his mouth twitch into a smirk. As long as he had her by his side, he could handle whatever life threw his way, including the two generations of dumbasses…though he wasn't sure about three.

"So how did it go?" she asked as she made it to where he stood.

"Well, we both made it out alive," he said then gave a quick shrug. "So, it went better than I thought it would."

Kitty gave out a small giggle, glad that the talk had gone so well—better than Red was letting on, she knew. However, Kitty wouldn't pressure him to say more about it especially since she was a little more curious about something else, "What were you thinking about right now?"

Red smirked, "Just about how much I love you."

He finished his answer by wrapping his left arm around his wife's shoulders causing Kitty to smile as they walked back into their house.

**The End**

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><p><em><strong>Author's Note: <strong>__So what did you think? Yay? Nay? A mix of both? Don't forget to tell me in a review!_

_I really hope you all enjoyed the story, sorry if the ending isn't the best, that was actually written a few days ago and as you can tell I'm kinda rusty. Don't worry though I'll be exercising my writing muscles soon and I'm sure reading other stories will also help me! :D I'm really excited!_

_Until next time, thanks for reading, hope you liked, please review and lemme know what you think, take care, and have a nice day!_


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